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    mary-c-curtis

    Mary C. Curtis

    Contributor

    At Fort Hood, America Needed a Hero, Quickly

    Posted:
    11/14/09
    Filed Under:Media, Woman Up
    143 Comments  + 
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    It's impossible to make sense of a horror like the murderous shootings at Fort Hood. Anointing a hero – an angel to balance devilish acts – helps restore hope. But in the rush to add a heart-warming narrative to heart-wrenching events, sometimes reality is lost.
    That may have happened in Texas.
    It turns out that the petite, 35-year-old mom who singlehandedly felled the alleged Fort Hood shooter probably had help. Was that so hard to admit?
    It takes time for ballistics reports and eyewitness interviews. So it was surprising how quickly a full-blown account of the heroism of Sgt. Kimberly Munley filled the news. She ran toward gunfire, took bullets and still managed to bring down Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who has since been charged with murder, according to the made-for-TV scenario.
    Additional reports add Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, 42, to the scene. Todd arrived at the same time as his fellow civilian police officer, he said in an interview in The New York Times. The two separated, and when they confronted the gunman, Todd saw Munley on the ground, wounded. "Once I came around the front of the building, I caught his attention again, started shouting commands, and then he opened up a second time," Todd said. "And that's when I returned fire, neutralized him and secured him." An eyewitness confirms his account.
    Of course, now officials urge everyone to wait until the investigation is complete. But there will always be those who choose to believe the initial story because it's so perfect. There are probably a few people who still think Jessica Lynch fought off a swarm of Iraqi insurgents during her 2003 capture.
    It's a story and an image guaranteed to make page 1: A petite woman fighting off the foreign or homegrown enemy -- especially when that enemy is a burly, swarthy guy – proves the rightness of our apple-pie and motherhood way of life. It helps if she's blond, of course. The teamwork of two professionals – one a 25-year veteran of the military and civilian police -- doing what they were trained to do -- isn't quite as sexy. That script is a little harder to write.
    The thing is, the initial fantasy – even if it was inadvertent – was totally unnecessary. What both Munley and Todd actually did was pretty amazing, the courage they showed just as real. The tale didn't need a glossy rewrite. The two people at the center seem slightly uncomfortable that they are getting any attention at all. As Todd said: "This is a tragic event. I don't think the attention should be on me. The medics are the ones who saved everybody's life."
    The praise, though deserved, also is a bit of a sideshow, something that shunts aside the mourning for the dead and the wounded in favor of some sort of happy ending.
    In appearances, the officers are anything but glory hounds. They were doing their duty and their jobs. That simple efficiency is enough, though, for kudos when we've become so used to the sloppy and the mediocre, when Army investigators are trying to figure out how someone with Hasan's history fell through the cracks.
    When airline pilots overshoot their destination or show up drunk, of course we treat the guy who landed on water as though he walks on it.
    Truth matters. Trust matters. The Army knows that from the stories of Lynch and Pat Tillman, the football star and Army Ranger shot accidentally by his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan -- heroic tales that curdled in the light. The media could stand a dose of skepticism, as well, recognizing when a story may be too good to be true.
    Yet, even as everyone takes a step back from the initial tales of Fort Hood heroism, more are rushing in with theories of the crime, sure they know exactly why Hasan did what he's accused of doing. We want answers, and we want them right now. Somehow, waiting for the facts to trickle in will not satisfy.
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    143 comments
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    Mary C. Curtis

    Mary C. Curtis, an NPR contributor based in Charlotte, N.C., was previously a writer and editor for The New York Times and the Charlotte Observer... more

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